Don Frank kindly prodded my memory about excerpting part of my review essay on two new books on Christianity and politics, one by Peter Leithart on Constantine and Wayne Grudem on the United States. The full review is here. What follows is part of the review.
The vast literature on religion and politics summons up Qoheleth’s oft-quoted remark, “Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body” (Eccl. 12:12). Remarkable indeed is the amount of published material on questions surrounding church and state, at least in the United States. For instance, in 1960, when despite strong anti-Catholic prejudice John F. Kennedy prevailed over Richard Nixon as the first Roman Catholic president, the number of books published on church and state ran to eighteen, up from five titles during the previous year. Figures returned to 1950s levels until 1976 when the bicentennial primed the pump of scholarly output. In 1976 publishers produced seventeen books. The presidency of Ronald Reagan and the presence of the Moral Majority would help to sustain the market: in 1980 eighteen and in 1981 fifteen books were devoted to church and state themes. By 1984 when the critique of secularism was taking hold, the number of books rose to thirty. Since then the numbers have only escalated: forty-seven in 1990, seventy-four in 1996; forty-four in 2000; eighty-one in 2004, and 188 in 2008. Obviously, if dinner conversations unravel when interlocutors introduce religion and politics, and if controversy sells, then publishers hoping to generate a return on their investment in an author, paper, cover art, and advertizing might look to religion and politics as a valuable topic. Still, doesn’t Qoheleth have a point? Hasn’t all this publishing wearied the subject, if not the readers?
The good news is that the titles under review demonstrate that more can be said, even if readers debate whether it needed to be. (For what it’s worth, these were two of sixty books published in 2010 on religion and politics.) Wayne Grudem’s Politics According to the Bible is textbook in size and arrangement of material, running from basic principles (about one-quarter of the book), to specific issues (about two-thirds) ranging from American foreign relations with Israel to farm subsidies, and concluding observations (one-eighth). Peter Leithart’s Defending Constantine is part biography of the first Christian emperor, assessment of his policies, and apology for Constantinianism (more below). Leithart is specifically intent to defend Constantine from the sort of criticisms leveled and made popular by John Howard Yoder, the Anabaptist ethicist who coined the term Constantinianism to highlight the ways in which the church’s entanglement with the state leads to unfaithfulness and even apostasy.
The cover art for each book is revealing. For Leithart’s the image from a reproduction of Constantine in an act of worship tells readers where the book is headed—a portrait of the emperor as a Christian one. Grudem’s book features the dome of the U.S. Capital building with a U.S. flag flying in front. What each author ends up doing is baptizing his subject. In Leithart’s case, Constantine is a model for Christian politics. For Grudem, the United States and its ideals of freedom and democracy are fundamentally Christian versions of civil polity; he even includes the full text of the Declaration of Independence in the chapter on biblical principles of government. The result is two books, published in the same year, written by two white men of conservative Protestant backgrounds in the United States, equipped with biblical and theological arguments, both making a case for Christian politics from wildly different political orders—one a Roman emperor, the other a federal republic. Readers may reasonably wonder if these authors are letting their subjects—the United States and Constantine’s empire—determine Christian politics or are basing their arguments on biblical teaching and theological reflection.
Old Life 
“Darryl G. Hart is visiting professor of history at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, and a member of Hillsdale Orthodox Church in Hillsdale, Michigan.”
Sounds like EO for the localists. Great review.
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I choose a) letting their subjects—the United States and Constantine’s empire—determine Christian politics…
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Could we have two different books here, covering two very different political realities, and yet uronically demonstrating that Christianity has struggled to find a sustained response to imperialism? So long as we baptize it, were all good.
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Thanks, Mike K.
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I’m glad I could be of assistance. I’m not quite half way through the book, but have appreciated its historical insights.
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I am decidedly not an Anabaptist. In fact, my firm convictions that God instituted the State, and that the State is an institution that believers and unbelievers share in common set me apart from Anabaptism (not to mention the rest of the Reformed confession).
But is it possible to be somewhat sympathetic to Yoder on this matter of Constantine and still be Reformed? One the nagging questions I have is, “What if there had been no Constantine”? Granted, in God’s providence, there was a Constantine. But how can we be so sure that our theology of the civil magistracy is more faithful to the biblical text than it is to the way Constantine has indelibly shaped the western Christian tradition?
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Chris, who’s this we political theologian? I might be able to answer your question if you identified to which view of the magistrate you’re referring. As I see it, conservative Reformed have some pretty big differences — Neo-Cals, theonomists, 2k, and garden variety God-and-country folks.
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My apologies. I was taking 2k for granted.
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Actually, what I mean is that “we” Reformed folk have a confession. To my knowledge there was not much variation in the confessional statements on the civil magistrate in the 16th and 17th centuries. Most of those tend use the “nursing fathers,” “protecting the ministry,” “promoting true religion,” etc. I absolutely believe in infant baptism, but must admit that I am not encouraged that one of the primary objections of the Reformers to Baptists (Anabaptists or otherwise), was that they were acting *treasonously* by not baptizing their children.
I’m also concerned that Constantine provided the motive and opportunity to view the State as a tool of the Church, rather than as an institution that should be obeyed but might very likely kill you, too.
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Yes! This summary quote echoes my sentiment exactly —
“Readers may reasonably wonder if these authors are letting their subjects—the United States and Constantine’s empire—determine Christian politics or are basing their arguments on biblical teaching and theological reflection.”
Not of a fan of either view and I’m regularly quite unhappy to see the majority of Christian Conservatives falling into one or the other error.
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After reading Darryl’s review in full I think the more important point is this one:
“In point of fact, Constantine’s baptism of Rome could not prevent the empire’s fall any more than restoring a Christian influence in the United States will avert the American republic’s demise. Christ died for his church, not for political orders. The only way for civilians to avoid judgment is not through the policies of Christian rulers but by being baptized and joining the body of Christ. No matter where such Christians live, no matter what the political order to which they submit, their future is secure if they belong to the king who is also a prophet and a priest.”
The point of: “Readers may reasonably wonder if these authors are letting their subjects- the United States and Constantine’s empire- determine Christian politics or are basing their arguments on biblical teaching and theological reflection.” is that you cannot really extract political theory from biblical (New Testament) teaching and theological reflection. At least that is what I think Darryl is saying here.
The only thing we can really do is give the advice that Luther did- to choose government leaders based on their understanding of justice and who formed their opinions on reflection from the best political theorists available. We also can pray for God’s mercy on our governmental leaders each Sunday and hope none of them turn into Bloody Mary’s or power mad egotistical dictators. The political system in the United States makes it very difficult for dictators to rise up. Power then moves to where the money is. And then you have to look at the institutional structures which causes money to move where the institutions direct it to. This seems to be one of the main problems in the United States.
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And I am aware of the Lutherans early mistake of getting too close to the magistrates (which Calvin did to) and the reaction of the Anabaptists when Luther counseled the magistrates for the sword of the state to deal with the peasant revolts (most of whom were under the influence of Anabaptist leaders). So, there are no easy answers in dealing with fallen man and political institutions. The best thing we can do is come under the influence of the pure Gospel and serve our fallen neighbors in our vocational callings with our filthy rags of good works.
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John, Does your definition of vocation include serving as an elected official of the government?
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Don,
Yes it does, why do you ask? I am not an Anabaptist in my thinking about the state. We are free to serve in any legitimate vocation that does not break any civil laws of the land. I do think it is wise to have proper training (in the best political theory available), experience, understanding of human nature and know what you are getting into before you do it. It is a tough route to go-especially if you have biblical and theological convictions.
I think the Church should be a more important institution than the State. Again, these are not easy issues to get a good handle on. I understand the varying viewpoints on the matter.
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I said: “I am not an Anabaptist in my thinking about the state.” I have found it difficult to make sense of an Anabaptist view of the state. The early ones seemed to want nothing to do with the state. They either want to take it over or let it be. Some, like Brian McClaren, who refuse to be classified or labeled, want to influence public policy for the poor and unemployed or use the military for purposes other than to fight wars.
Some Anabaptists also like to call themselves proto-Protestants. They are heavily against the dominionism and sacralism of Leithardt et al (Constantinianism). This all gets almost as confusing as the justification and union debates. I make a higher priority these days to try to understand more about what is going on in the Church than in the State.
Can anyone answer the question of why God makes this all so complicated, or, is it us humans and our inherent sin which makes it more complicated than it should be?
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I do not think it is wise to have an overtly Christian approach to politics and the State either. I stole that idea from Darryl Hart’s new book.
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John, Just trying to understand your perspective a little better. I got the false impression from your comments that Christians should not be involved in government.
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Chris, I’m still not sure of your concern. It seems to me that 2k comes as close to critiquing Constantinianism as you’ll find among the churches of the magisterial reformation. I actually think Leithart makes some effective criticisms of Yoder. But 2k also shares your concern about not wanting the state to be a tool of the church or vice versa.
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John Y. that is my point.
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Those who would defend Constantine tend to defend slavery and other rituals of Christendom. I refer not only to the attempt to eliminate heresy by means of violence. I refer to the “federal vision” deconstruction of any difference between water and “union with Christ”. Like Stanley Hauerawas, they will defend anything just so long as it is anti-liberal.
The next time they are Constantine they promise to do it better. But as inductive theologians (see Bozeman’s books), they remind us that even what Constantine did in the past was a result of God’s sovereign providence. They are trying to sell us a narrative in which the visibility of the kingdom of Jesus has to do with a ritual inherited from Augustine which was supposed to “wash away original sin”.
We need to oppose ecclesiastical antinomianism. But ritualism is not the answer to Arminian “revivalism” Ritualists want to hand out grace without judging saved and lost based on the doctrine of the gospel.
Just like they want you to become part of the “democracy” without asking you, they want to preemptively include you in their “church”.
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Leithart claims that Yoder was effected by his social location. Writing in Europe against the state churches of Europe, Yoder could not see that sectarian nation-building is not the same thing as the medieval achievement of cultural unity. In other words, Leithart is accusing the ecclesiology of Yoder of still being “modernist”.
Even if we can’t be quite Roman Catholic yet, Leithart thinks, we must all agree that justification by faith alone is mere Gnosticism. Justification is by obedience to God’s law, Leithart explains, and for that we need both character and community. We need to work with that which has come about with the passing of time, and if we resist the gradualism of the Magisterial Reformers, we will end up with no “real church” at all, and no conservative culture!
In order to “de-sacrifice the empire”, we need to do two things, according to Leithart. First, we support the sacrifice (killing of) the enemies of Rome. Second, in time we move the rituals of unity into “the church” (which will of course support the empire).
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“It is not by accident that the imperative of verse Romans 13:1 is not literally one of “obedience”. The Greek language has good words to denote “obedience”. What the text calls for, however, is subordination. The Christian who refuses to worship Caesar but who is put to death by Caesar, is being subordinate even though he is not obeying.
“The motives of this subordination are found not in fear or in calculations of how best to survive, but “in the mercies of God” (12:1) or in “conscience” (13:5). If the reason of our subordination is not God’s having legitimated all the wrath of the state (or delegating all the wrath to the state), what is our reason? Further attention to the motif of subordination as it is urged upon the slave ( I Peter 2:13) or upon family members (Col 3:18), shows the reason to be that Jesus Christ himself accepted subordination and humiliation (Phil 2:5).
The willingness to suffer is then not merely a test of our patience or a dead space of waiting for Jesus to return. Willingness to suffer instead of killing is an imitation of God’s victorious patience with the rebellious powers of his creation.
John H. Yoder, Politics, p213
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What ever Leithart said about me is Lies… Lies I said.
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